Comprehensive assessment of myocardial remodeling in ischemic heart disease by synchrotron propagation based X-ray phase contrast imaging

Planinc, Ivo; García Cañadilla, Patricia, 1985-; Dejea i Velardo, Hèctor; Ilic, Ivana; Guasch, Eduard; Zamora, Monica; Crispi Brillas, Fàtima; Stampanoni, Marco; Milicic, Davor; Bijnens, Bart; Bonnin, Anne; Cikes, Maja

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93054-6

Comprehensive assessment of myocardial remodeling in ischemic heart disease by synchrotron propagation based X-ray phase contrast imaging

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Planinc I, Garcia-Canadilla P, Dejea H, Ilic I, Guasch E, Zamora M, et al. Comprehensive assessment of myocardial remodeling in ischemic heart disease by synchrotron propagation based X-ray phase contrast imaging. Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 7;11(1):14020. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93054-6

Abstract

Cardiovascular research is in an ongoing quest for a superior imaging method to integrate gross-anatomical information with microanatomy, combined with quantifiable parameters of cardiac structure. In recent years, synchrotron radiation-based X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging (X-PCI) has been extensively used to characterize soft tissue in detail. The objective was to use X-PCI to comprehensively quantify ischemic remodeling of different myocardial structures, from cell to organ level, in a rat model of myocardial infarction. Myocardial infarction-induced remodeling was recreated in a well-established rodent model. Ex vivo rodent hearts were imaged by propagation based X-PCI using two configurations resulting in 5.8 µm and 0.65 µm effective pixel size images. The acquired datasets were used for a comprehensive assessment of macrostructural changes including the whole heart and vascular tree morphology, and quantification of left ventricular myocardial thickness, mass, volume, and organization. On the meso-scale, tissue characteristics were explored and compared with histopathological methods, while microstructural changes were quantified by segmentation of cardiomyocytes and calculation of cross-sectional areas. Propagation based X-PCI provides detailed visualization and quantification of morphological changes on whole organ, tissue, vascular as well as individual cellular level of the ex vivo heart, with a single, non-destructive 3D imaging modality.